A new paradigm for vj-ing with Modul8

Tag Archive: beat

Yes, it’s been a little quiet on the blog front lately, so I though I’d give you a little teaser of what’s in development…

The new DMX sequencer, which is very lovely. Can sequence up to 512 channels with 2 levels of brightness. Uses the timecode protocol for the clock signal so requires either Gener8 or the Timecode module to run, which is great because this means you’ll also be able to sync it to midi clock.

Great for working with L.E.D.

Available in the online library already : )

In the brewing is an updated version which allows for full RGB output, and a more refined UI. I will give full instructions and perhaps a video when it’s available. : )

One of the powerful but hidden delights of Gener8 is a sequencing method which can quickly produce small Clip sequences in a live situation: Follow Actions

So, here’s a short tutorial to help you master it.

Some salient points to remember:

Each Clip can have its own ‘Follow Action‘.

A Clip’s ‘Follow Action‘ will occur a set number of beats after that Clip has been triggered.

There are a number of different types of ‘Follow Actions‘ which can be applied: Increment, Random, Other, etc.

Step 1 – Prepare your Clips

To do any kind of sequence of Clips, we’re going to need some Clips to sequence. So let’s get started:

Spark up Modul8, make sure you have a ‘New Project’ so things don’t get confusing.

Open up the Gener8 Launchpad and Editor modules (these are the core modules and you’ll need to run these together).

Once the Launchpad is ready, create yourself a few Clips on the 1st layer. To do this simply click on the preview panels on the empty Clip holders. NOTE: It’ll be useful for the sake of this tutorial to create your Clips in the same clip-slots as the image below.

Step 2 – Assign Media to your Clips

You can skip this step, but the final result will obviously be more effective with media!

Chuck some of your favourite media in your Media Panel. (select a few files from a Finder window and drag/drop them into the Media Panel)

Activate a Gener8 Clip.

Select a media for that Clip from the Media Panel.

Activate the next Gener8 Clip (make sure the Clip trigger has stopped flashing – a useful tip when you are assigning a lot of media’s is to turn off the quantise to speed the process up)

Select the next media for the second Clip. 🙂

And so on, repeat until all your Clips have media assigned to them.

Tip: You can also change the media assigned to a Clip in the Clip Inspector (top left – Trig pane). There is a value for ‘Media’ number there.

Step 3 – Create a Follow Actions

As I mentioned before, there are quite a few different types of Follow Actions, but first we will have a play with the ‘Increment’ action.

Select the topmost Clip by clicking on the media preview of the Clip in the Launchpad (it doesn’t need to be active, you can do this on the sly during your performance.) Selected Clips have an orange square around them.

Okay, the Clip Inspector will now be open on the top left of the Gener8 Launchpad, and will be displaying the properties of the selected clip. Select the ‘TRIG’ pane to view the Follow Actions settings.

Next, set the Follow Actions menu to ‘Increment’. You will see a further setting appear, we’ll leave this at the default setting of ‘1’ for now. Time for some explanations…

How Does a ‘Follow Action’ Work?

Okay, now we have a Follow Action in place (in the above instance it’s an ‘Increment’ action), the next time this Clip is triggered, it will send out a secondary trigger which will occur a set number of beats after the initial Clip is triggered. You have options for which Clip is triggered next, and how many beats will occur before the ‘follow trigger’ happens.

You can only:

Trigger Clips in the same layer.

Delay triggers by whole beats.

Everything else is pretty much game, but remember – changes to a Clip’s Follow Actions settings will not take effect until that Clip is re-triggered.

Step 4 – Let’s make a Follow Loop.

We have an Increment action on our 1st Clip, let’s see if we can make a simple sequence which works in a loop.

Select Clip 2 and make a further ‘Increment’ action for this Clip, only this time let’s set the ‘INCR.’ value to ‘2’.

Now select Clip 4 and again make another ‘Increment’ action. This time we will set our ‘INCR.’ value to ‘-3’.

Re-trigger Clip 1 and sit back while you sequence plays…

So, how is this working?

Our 1st Clip has an increment value of 1, which means it will trigger the Clip ‘1’ space below it, which is ‘Clip 2’.

Clip 2 has an increment value of ‘2’, so it will trigger the Clip ‘2’ spaces below it: ‘Clip 4’.

Clip 4 has an increment value of ‘-3’, so it will trigger the Clip 3 spaces above it: ‘Clip 1’.